1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a radiographic image capturing system for acquiring a radiographic image of a subject by controlling a selected image capturing unit with a processor that is associated with the selected image capturing unit.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the medical field, there have widely been used image capturing apparatus which apply radiation to a subject and guide the radiation that has passed through the subject to a radiation conversion panel, which captures a radiographic image from the radiation.
One known radiation conversion panel is a stimulable phosphor panel which stores a radiation energy representative of a radiographic image in a phosphor. When the stimulable phosphor panel is irradiated with stimulating light, the phosphor emits stimulated light representative of the stored radiographic image. The stimulable phosphor panel with the radiographic image recorded therein is supplied to a reading apparatus which reads the stored radiographic image as a visible radiographic image.
In sites of medical practice such as operating rooms or the like, it is necessary to read recorded radiographic image information immediately from a radiation conversion panel for the purpose of quickly and appropriately treating the patient. As a radiation conversion panel which meets such a requirement, there has been developed a radiation converter having a solid-state imaging device for converting a radiation directly into an electric signal or converting a radiation into visible light with a scintillator and then converting the visible light into an electric signal to read a detected radiographic image.
There are available in the art various image capturing apparatus of different specifications for capturing radiographic images using such radiation conversion panels depending on the conditions of patients as subjects to be imaged and their body regions to be imaged. Those different image capturing apparatus include an image capturing apparatus for capturing a radiographic image of the chest of a patient while the patient is standing up, an image capturing apparatus for capturing a radiographic image of the abdominal region of a patient while the patient is lying on a bed, and an image capturing apparatus for capturing a radiographic image of a patient while the patient is sitting in a wheelchair. Some body regions of patients are imaged using a stimulable phosphor panel or a radiation converter which is stored in a cassette.
In the radiological departments of large hospitals, image capturing apparatus or image capturing units comprising cassettes are installed in respective image capturing rooms. Each of the image capturing rooms houses therein a console (processor) for setting, in a radiation source, image capturing conditions corresponding to the radiation conversion panel placed in the image capturing room, e.g., a tube voltage, a tube current, an irradiation time, etc. depending on the sensitivity of the radiation conversion panel and the body region to be imaged of the patient, and processing and displaying a captured radiographic image. The console receives an image capturing order, which has been made by a doctor using an RIS (Radiology Information System), through an in-house network. A radiological technician operates the console to confirm the details of the image capturing order, selects an image capturing unit specified by the image capturing order, and performs an image capturing process on the selected image capturing unit. The image capturing order includes patient information representing the name, age, etc. of the patient and also information representing the image capturing unit designated by the doctor, an image capturing method, etc.
The image capturing unit and the console need to be properly related to each other because the image capturing unit has to acquire image capturing conditions for capturing appropriate radiographic images from the console. Furthermore, in order for the radiological technician to confirm radiographic images with increased efficiency and to prevent patients from being mistaken, it is necessary to supply radiographic images captured by the image capturing unit to the console, so that the console can process the radiographic images in accurate association with the patient information.
According to the related art disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2008-142314 and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2008-167841, a plurality of consoles and a plurality of radiation converters (FPD: Flat Panel Detector) are connected to each other through a wireless access point (see Paragraph [0038], FIG. 3 of the former publication and Paragraph [0033], FIG. 3 of the latter publication), and each console or each FPD is prevented from accepting a plurality of image capturing orders redundantly, so that the consoles and the FPD are correctly associated with each other for thereby preventing patients from being mistaken.
According to the related art disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-024317, one console (controller) and a plurality of image capturing apparatus are connected by connecting cables (see Paragraph [0004], FIG. 5 of the publication). One of the image capturing apparatus is selected, and a radiographic image captured by the selected image capturing apparatus is sent to the console connected thereto by the connecting cable and processed by the console.
In an image capturing room of the radiological department of a hospital, a radiological technician may be unable to select an image capturing unit which a doctor has specified in an image capturing order. For example, when the doctor specifies an upstanding image capturing apparatus to capture radiographic images of a patient in an image capturing order, the patient may not take an upstanding posture due to physical limitations. In such a case, the radiological technician has to change to an imaging process which uses either an image capturing apparatus for capturing radiographic images of a patient while lying on a bed or a cassette housing an FPD or a stimulable phosphor panel therein.
When the radiological technician changes the specified image capturing unit to another image capturing apparatus or a cassette, if the console fails to recognize the change and make proper settings about the association of the console and the changed image capturing apparatus or cassette, then inappropriate image capturing conditions may be set in the changed image capturing apparatus or cassette, possibly resulting in a failure to acquire the radiographic images of the patient.
Furthermore, the radiological technician has to select the size of a cassette required to capture a radiographic image and a cassette which has been charged that is capable of capturing a radiographic image, and also has to change the information about the changed cassette through the console. The invention disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2008-142314 only serves to prevent each console or each FPD from accepting a plurality of image capturing orders redundantly, and does not deal with changes in the association between the consoles and the FPDs. Consequently, the radiological technician needs to take the trouble of separately changing the association. According to the invention Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-024317, since the relationship between the image capturing apparatus and the console is fixed by the connecting cables, changes in the connections between the image capturing apparatus and the console cannot be dealt with.